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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

I originally heard about this book from one of Nancy Pearl's Book Lust books. I had an upcoming 4 hour trip so when I saw this audiobook at the library I picked it up. (Not that I didn't have a ton of books on my phone already...)

The star of this book is the setting of post-Katrina New Orleans. It's absolutely fabulous. I don't know if I've ever been more enamored of a book's setting. Claire goes to New Orleans for a missing person case. The book is set about a year and a half after Katrina in the slowly recovering city while Claire tries to find a prosecutor who vanished in the chaos of the hurricane. In addition to the main plot line, we learn about Claire's childhood and friends. This mystery is also very intriguing. I was expecting something humorous, so this book's darkness was a surprise. It's very gritty. I also read Gran's follow-up in the Claire DeWitt series: Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway. Sadly, I didn't think it measured up to the first book. But, how can you outdo a book with a premise of a person missing after a hurricane? The plot of Claire's childhood friends continues, but isn't resolved in the series' second book. The goodreads summary of the City of the Dead says that it is the first in a series. Since the Bohemian Highway didn't tie up Claire's personal issues, I hope there will be another book that does just that. The author's website sadly doesn't offer much hope for it anytime soon though.